One cannot blame the universities for these student deficits, which, the authors observe, are often irremediable over the course of campus residency. Clearly the secondary-school system is failing to meet basic pedagogical objectives, and is failing to cull incompetent students. University students should be honing already-absorbed competencies, not learning them from scratch, nor should university-level academics’ time be wasted in remedial instruction.

But pedagogues K-12 are often in denial of the problem, because they are themselves in thrall to the “self-esteem” zeitgeist, about which so much ink has been spilt. They are giving good grades to work that does not merit it, because of the prevailing “all must have prizes” culture they operate within. In a 2008 study, psychology professor Ellen Greenberger found that two-thirds of university students believe that if they’re “trying hard,” their grades should reflect their effort, not their actual achievement. One-third of the 400 undergrads her team interviewed for the study felt they deserved a B grade just for attending most of a course’s classes.

Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Phil has a question:

Why is Phil starting with an article on education the morning after the Kentucky Derby.

Are you sitting down.

Other than the Cuff Report have you ever seen Phil enthralled with a bureaucratic study.

Is there any bigger problem in Canada than the erosion of standards in our school systems.

Do you think the school systems in Alberta are any better than in Ontario.

If the province of Ontario never spent the billions of Dollars of recent equalization payments it stole from Alberta on education, what did it waste the money on.

Do you think that the Taliban schools give every kid a ribbon.

Do you think the schools in China, Japan, South Korea et al give every kid a ribbon.

How stupid do our educators have to be to think that achievement comes from self esteem when achievement comes from effort and has zero correlational to self esteem.

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.

Theodore Isaac Rubin

Will the province of Ontario and the other Canadian provinces act on this report or will they just pay it lip service and continue on their merry ways like the QKB did with the Cuff Report.

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.

“The riders of the 18 (Long Range Toddy) and 20 (Country House) horses in the Kentucky Derby lodged objections against the seven horse, the winner, alleging interference turning for home leaving the quarter pole. We had a lengthy review of the race, interviewed affected riders, and determined that the seven horse drifted out and impacted the number 1 (War of Will), who in turn interfered with the 18 and 21 (Bodexpress). Those horses were all affected. Therefore, we unanimously determined to disqualify number 7 and place him behind 18. That is our typical procedure.”

If you believe that your horse was wrongly disqualified from victory in the Kentucky Derby would you not want to head straight to the Preakness to ensure your horses chance at being the first Triple Crown winner after a stewards’ decision is overturned.

Did he not see how many times Maximum Security drifted in and out on the backstretch impeding War of Will from going by him.

Did he not notice that War of Will was coming with a full head of steam to go by Maximum Security and it’s only because of a superlative effort by Tyler Gaffalione that War of Will didn’t go down and cause a massive chain reaction.

Did he not notice that Maximum Security over corrected and impeded Code of Honor as that horse came up the rail.

Did he not notice that Maximum Security again drifted out into the path of War of Will who had regrouped and was coming on only to be again impeded by Maximum Security.

Does Bill Finley realize that his theory is based on a bunch of speculative assumptions he makes about other horses in the field.

Bleeding significantly after her trip around the New Orleans track, Serengeti Empress was vanned off, and Amoss was suddenly faced with the possibility that his plans to point the dark bay toward a start in the $1.25 million Longines Kentucky Oaks (G1) May 3 at Churchill Downs were no longer plausible.

Taking a moment to reflect, Amoss decided to do the one thing that has served him well, time and again, since he began training more than 30 years ago: listen to his horse.

…

“All credit goes to Tom,” Politi said. “I think Tom is the greatest trainer in the world, and I’m ecstatic that he won this race. What we’ve been through emotionally in the last six weeks is a lot of things. For us, she’s a really special horse. We were not going to run just to run. We took it day by day, and she’s an incredible athlete. She told us she was fine, repetitively, along the way, and if she wasn’t, both of us were very committed to not running. And, again, every day she showed us that she was fine.”